Tonight, Lincoln Robinson Jr., a resident of the Queen Square area of Belize City is recovering from a very serious injury to his right eye - and he says its the police that did it. It happened early last Saturday, when 3 police officers from a specialized unit put a beatdown on him.
Now, we warn that the photo of the injury to his eye is graphic, but we believe that we must show you the damage he suffered for context.
He says that one of the officers kicked him so many times to his face, that his boot almost tore off his eyelid completely. His version of events are that he was coming from a female friend's house late on Friday night, early into Saturday morning, when he encountered these officers, who stopped him.
He said that he answered all their questions and they left him to go on his way. But they followed him, and when he arrived on West Collet Canal, the officers stopped him again.
He claims that this time around, they were not interested in interrogating him, and neither did they search him. From his perspective, these officers came for one reason, quote, "to put hand on him". He spoke with us off-camera this afternoon, and we pick up the conversation where he was explaining that the officers ordered him to stop and put his hands behind his head.
From there, they kicked him in the groin, and that's when the fists and kicks started flying at him. Here's how he explained it:
Voice of: Lincoln Robinson Jr., Alleges Police Brutality
"So now I stopped. When I stopped now they told me to assume position, then they kicked me in my balls and put me in a headlock. I was unconscious, until I heard the Hispanic officer say that they will take me for a ride right now. At that time a dark-skinned officer was at the pan of the vehicle on the driver's side. He said that they will kidnapped me right now. So he came around and punched me. That was when I was awaken and started to wrestle with the other officer on the side walk. One of the officer fell while I was wrestling with him. One of the officers was trying to grab my feet, I stomped him with my right foot. The Hispanic officer started to kick me in my stomach."
"They were trying to pick up me to place me in the back of the vehicle, but my feet got tangled with one of the officers. So they couldn't pick me up. So I fought my way into the lady's house and I bang the door. The officers watch me and laugh and then they jumped into the vehicle and drove off."
"When I was on the ground, the officers kicked me on my face in my eye."
Reporter
"If you see these police officers again, would you be able to identify them?"
Voice of: Lincoln Robinson Jr., Alleges Police Brutality
"You could put a million and one persons in front of me and I could pinpoint them. It's my life they were trying to take. I wouldn't be here to speak to you right now. I would have been deceased. Right now my family wouldn't have had to look for me or something of the officers had taken me - shallow grave me or bury me or throw me in the water."
Robinson says that while the officers were leaving after the beatdown, they mocked him and jokingly instructed him to, quote, "go tell Chester". You'll remember that Deputy Police Commissioner Chester Williams was the head of the Professional Standards Branch, which will have to investigate his complaint of police brutality.
As for Robinson himself, his aunt, who is a nurse, told us that the force the kicks to his right eye almost tore the eyelid completely off. Robinson had to endure 3 hours of eye surgery, where the doctor had to reconstruct the eyelid. He's gotten back most of his sight, but he suffers blurriness at this time.
The prognosis is that his eye may heal, but will never be back to what it was before the alleged beatdown. He'll have what is called a "lazy eye".
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